We examine how no-fault divorce law affects the age at first marriage, when everyone has a different value of marriage …. The heterogeneity of individual values implies an unambiguous negative effect on the variance of marriage age. We test … this hypothesis with marriage records from 1970 to 1995. Controlling for state-level heterogeneity and for time trends, the …

An early age at first marriage is known to be associated with a high risk of divorce. Yet it has been suggested that … beyond a certain point, the relationship between age at marriage and marital instability may become positive, because as … cycles 5 and 6 of the National Surveys of Family Growth show that the relationship between age at marriage and marital …